...just so that's clear.
This fabulous two-week Christmas break will be marked by some serious road-tripping. When Tyler and I road-trip, we do not mess around. And by that I mean we don't stop. Ever. My road-trip bladder was highly conditioned in my youth to withstand trips across the state of Montana with nary a stop and for this I am eternally grateful. Not because Tyler is a stop-Nazi who veers into maniacal laughter as I beg for relief, but because it sucks to be the stereotypical girl on a road trip who has to pee every fifteen minutes. We stop for gas and gas only, barring any unfortunately-timed energy drinks.
The road-trip in question will be a journey from Pullman, Washington to Denver, Colorado to Whitefish, Montana back to Pullman, Washington. I find it likely to the point of certainty that we will do each of these drives in one day. Pullman to Denver. In one day. Denver to Whitefish. In one day. That is how we roll. And by that, I mostly mean that that is how Tyler rolls. The man can drive indefinitely. And does. He does these 18-hour drives by himself often and seemingly requires little distraction. Give the man a few cds and maybe some food and he is good to go. I also require a few cds but generally lose my mind somewhere around the five-hour mark. This provides some entertainment for my fellow trippers, but I phase in and out of reality once I pass this point of no return. One friend may recall me laughing hysterically at a sign for a historic tree nursery for about a half hour while continuously talking in a British accent that would horrify anyone who is even remotely fond of Britain.
Anyway, that doesn't really matter much because I won't really be driving much. I usually drive in about two-hour stretches with Tyler. I think this is due to three important factors. 1: Tyler feels safer when he drives unsafe stretches (ex. mountain passes, dark roads, winding roads, narrow roads, icy roads, wet roads, roads with wildlife or other drivers anywhere about, etc.). 2: I have the attention span of a head-injured goldfish. And 3: I am not a good driver. This is due largely to the attention-span thing. I get easily distracted by colorful things, shiny things, scenery, motion, or the subject I happen to be talking about at the time. It is also due to random bouts of superiority (displayed by driving almost exactly the speed limit and sadly shaking my heads at all the reckless drivers around me) followed immediately and at random by bouts of extreme and unwarrented aggression (displayed by yelling loudly at drivers anywhere near me, slower drivers, anyone changing lanes, or inanimate objects like stop signs). Apparently, schitzophrenic driving is a little nerve-wracking for passengers.
So we will do this drive. It will be fun. My job will consist mainly of driving briefly to make myself feel better, changing music, sleeping, retrieving food from the recesses of the car for Tyler, trying to entertain Tyler as he drives, and attempting to keep myself sane. I will spend long stretches staring at the scenery around us (this will not happen in Wyoming as the entire state looks the same for hours on end), going over in my head the entire plots of movies I have seen and books I have read, singing loudly to any music that is happening in the car (including all instrumental music), and coming up with ideas for books that I will never write.
I may attempt to get books on tape for this venture, but Tyler has begged me not to get any "girly" books. This is, no doubt, a reference to the fact that I like Jane Austen and he thinks her writing belongs only in convents. O well. I will find something manly.
I am currently debating what foods to bring. It will probably be whatever we have left in the apartment so...walnuts. Yep, that's pretty much it.
Look out, highways. Here we come.
12.03.2010
And now for something completely different...
Up to this point in the land of blog (I refuse to use the term "blogosphere"), I have attempted to be humorous in all my stories for you, dear reader. I want to amuse you, make you laugh, and not turn this thing into some sort of cyber-journal for baring far more of my soul than any would ever care to know. I still promise to never descend into sickening junior high poetry ("no one understands me", "my life is a black abyss", "I am trapped in a circling vortex of black darkness that is o-so dark and black", etc.) but today I am introspective and I thought I would throw my introspection out there and see if anyone else is feeling it or if I am a melancholy ball of psychosis.
The main point of the aforementioned introspection is the feeling of being lost. I think lost is the wrong word. Maybe directionless? Rudderless? Adrift? I don't know. The real issue is that suddenly I don't have a next step. Prior to this point there has always been a next step. I will explain.
Elementary school comes before middle school. Middle school comes before high school. After high school, go to college. And after college...what? Well, ideally you get a job in your field. Sciencey people go into medicine or research or whatever else those sciencey people do. Teaching majors get teaching jobs. Political scientists go into law or politics or something. Theater majors...do theatery things. Peace studies majors go join a commune or a non-profit or a protest group or something. The real dilemma here is that even in majors that have a logical next step after school, people do different things. We pick up jobs in dental offices or schools or libraries or restaurants and we say it's just until we move on. But move on to what?
I don't have a next step. I don't have a goal. I have no clue what I want to do. I don't want to work in the dentist office forever even though it is a good job with good pay and nice people. I want to do what my major said I could, broad and beautiful concepts of changing the world and making a difference and saving little pieces of humanity wherever I find them. But even though I knew I wanted those broad, beautiful things, I never knew how I was going to achieve them. Do I move to an orphanage in Africa? Go teach in China? Head to Northern Ireland and try to make myself useful in some sort of community work? Go build houses in South America? Work in projects somewhere in the states? I have nothing. No leads. No answers. No clue.
I know this sounds a little self-pitying and I don't mean it to be that way. I mean even less to somehow blame others for not warning me that I would suddenly have no advisors or instructors. I knew college would end. I knew real life would happen. My lack of decision is my fault. But what to do? Reality hits hard. Do I want more school? Sure, I would probably enjoy that. But I have to know what I am going to school for. Do I want to work for some non-profit and feel like my life is making a difference? Absolutely. But I still have to pay my rent and insurance and buy food. In this economy, I am thankful that I have a job and it feels almost selfish to complain that it is not fulfilling, that I want more.
But I do.
I want to do something that will make me feel that even if I die tomorrow, I will have done something that matters. I want to leave work feeling fulfilled or accomplished even when I am drained and exhausted. I want to feel that sense of purpose, that drive, that motivation that I felt when I was in school: that I was working towards something.
And I really want to not be the only one who feels directionless and confused right now.
Sorry this was not amusing. I will amuse you later. Now to determine what kind of pizza I eat tonight.
The main point of the aforementioned introspection is the feeling of being lost. I think lost is the wrong word. Maybe directionless? Rudderless? Adrift? I don't know. The real issue is that suddenly I don't have a next step. Prior to this point there has always been a next step. I will explain.
Elementary school comes before middle school. Middle school comes before high school. After high school, go to college. And after college...what? Well, ideally you get a job in your field. Sciencey people go into medicine or research or whatever else those sciencey people do. Teaching majors get teaching jobs. Political scientists go into law or politics or something. Theater majors...do theatery things. Peace studies majors go join a commune or a non-profit or a protest group or something. The real dilemma here is that even in majors that have a logical next step after school, people do different things. We pick up jobs in dental offices or schools or libraries or restaurants and we say it's just until we move on. But move on to what?
I don't have a next step. I don't have a goal. I have no clue what I want to do. I don't want to work in the dentist office forever even though it is a good job with good pay and nice people. I want to do what my major said I could, broad and beautiful concepts of changing the world and making a difference and saving little pieces of humanity wherever I find them. But even though I knew I wanted those broad, beautiful things, I never knew how I was going to achieve them. Do I move to an orphanage in Africa? Go teach in China? Head to Northern Ireland and try to make myself useful in some sort of community work? Go build houses in South America? Work in projects somewhere in the states? I have nothing. No leads. No answers. No clue.
I know this sounds a little self-pitying and I don't mean it to be that way. I mean even less to somehow blame others for not warning me that I would suddenly have no advisors or instructors. I knew college would end. I knew real life would happen. My lack of decision is my fault. But what to do? Reality hits hard. Do I want more school? Sure, I would probably enjoy that. But I have to know what I am going to school for. Do I want to work for some non-profit and feel like my life is making a difference? Absolutely. But I still have to pay my rent and insurance and buy food. In this economy, I am thankful that I have a job and it feels almost selfish to complain that it is not fulfilling, that I want more.
But I do.
I want to do something that will make me feel that even if I die tomorrow, I will have done something that matters. I want to leave work feeling fulfilled or accomplished even when I am drained and exhausted. I want to feel that sense of purpose, that drive, that motivation that I felt when I was in school: that I was working towards something.
And I really want to not be the only one who feels directionless and confused right now.
Sorry this was not amusing. I will amuse you later. Now to determine what kind of pizza I eat tonight.
12.01.2010
Hugh Laurie is the eternal rocker of my world.
For those of you not given to the Laurie fever, let me give you a short list of reasons why you should be.
1) The man is a comic genius. Seriously. I know he plays tons of side characters, but he plays them enormously well. Also, he wrote and starred in two very British comedy shows, "A Bit of Fry and Laurie" and "Jeeves and Wooster". Both are brilliantly, well, British. In the very best possible sense.
2) House. The man is House. Yes, I know lots of people don't particularly like the show, think Dr. House is an ass, all of that. However, you absolutely cannot deny that the man can act. And for those of us that like the occasional dose of evil, sarcastic, aggressively anti-social humour, House is a wonderful chance to indulge ourselves.
3) The man is so good at his American accent for the show that tons of people don't even know he's British! INCLUDING THE EXECUTIVE PRODUCER FOR THE SHOW!!! No, seriously. He called him just the kind of compelling American actor he had been looking for. I bet the rest of that conversation was interesting.
4) He plays like five instruments. Seriously. And apparently he is soon coming out with a blues/jazz album.
5) He is charming. Wait, just to me? Really? Moving on.
The last and most important reason to love the man is that he has written quite possibly the funniest book I have ever read. And I have read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which many apparently look to as the king book of random and strange humor. This beats it. No, really.
Hugh Laurie's book, The Gun Seller, is a wonderful spoof on spy thriller-type books. It is engaging and entertaining and made me want to keep reading, leading to many a groggy morning in the ol' dental office. In an attempt to convince you to read it, and an attempt to repeat things that made me laugh earlier, I will now give you snippets of the book.
"Swallows flitted here and there, darting in and out of the trees and bushes like furtive homosexuals, while the furtive homosexuals flitted here and there, pretty much like swallows."
"Rayner was uglier than a car park, with a big, hairless skull that dipped and bulged like a balloon full of spanners, and his flattened, fighter's nose, apparently drawn on his face by someone using their left hand, or perhaps even their left foot, spread out in a meandering, lopsided delta under the rough slab of his forehead. And God Almighty, what a forehead. Bricks, knives, bottles and reasoned arguments had, in their time, bounced harmlessly off this massive frontal plane."
"When the bar had cleared, I leant across to the fat man and gave him a speech. It was a dull speech, but even so, he listened very carefully, because I'd reached under the table and taken hold of his scrotum."
Look, all I am trying to say, really, is that you should read this book. Really. As in, immediately. Or sooner. It is magical and has made me actually laugh out loud. And I am not generally a laugh-out-louder to books.
There you go. Read the book. Grow in your Laurie love. Enjoy.
Off to do work.
1) The man is a comic genius. Seriously. I know he plays tons of side characters, but he plays them enormously well. Also, he wrote and starred in two very British comedy shows, "A Bit of Fry and Laurie" and "Jeeves and Wooster". Both are brilliantly, well, British. In the very best possible sense.
2) House. The man is House. Yes, I know lots of people don't particularly like the show, think Dr. House is an ass, all of that. However, you absolutely cannot deny that the man can act. And for those of us that like the occasional dose of evil, sarcastic, aggressively anti-social humour, House is a wonderful chance to indulge ourselves.
3) The man is so good at his American accent for the show that tons of people don't even know he's British! INCLUDING THE EXECUTIVE PRODUCER FOR THE SHOW!!! No, seriously. He called him just the kind of compelling American actor he had been looking for. I bet the rest of that conversation was interesting.
4) He plays like five instruments. Seriously. And apparently he is soon coming out with a blues/jazz album.
5) He is charming. Wait, just to me? Really? Moving on.
The last and most important reason to love the man is that he has written quite possibly the funniest book I have ever read. And I have read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which many apparently look to as the king book of random and strange humor. This beats it. No, really.
Hugh Laurie's book, The Gun Seller, is a wonderful spoof on spy thriller-type books. It is engaging and entertaining and made me want to keep reading, leading to many a groggy morning in the ol' dental office. In an attempt to convince you to read it, and an attempt to repeat things that made me laugh earlier, I will now give you snippets of the book.
"Swallows flitted here and there, darting in and out of the trees and bushes like furtive homosexuals, while the furtive homosexuals flitted here and there, pretty much like swallows."
"Rayner was uglier than a car park, with a big, hairless skull that dipped and bulged like a balloon full of spanners, and his flattened, fighter's nose, apparently drawn on his face by someone using their left hand, or perhaps even their left foot, spread out in a meandering, lopsided delta under the rough slab of his forehead. And God Almighty, what a forehead. Bricks, knives, bottles and reasoned arguments had, in their time, bounced harmlessly off this massive frontal plane."
"When the bar had cleared, I leant across to the fat man and gave him a speech. It was a dull speech, but even so, he listened very carefully, because I'd reached under the table and taken hold of his scrotum."
Look, all I am trying to say, really, is that you should read this book. Really. As in, immediately. Or sooner. It is magical and has made me actually laugh out loud. And I am not generally a laugh-out-louder to books.
There you go. Read the book. Grow in your Laurie love. Enjoy.
Off to do work.
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